Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

Welcome to the computing section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

skip to bottom

Select a section:

• Computing
• Entertainment
• Humanities
• Language
• Mathematics
• Science
• Miscellaneous
• Archives

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

   

How can I get my question answered?

• Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
• Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
• Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
• Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
• Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
• Note:
  • We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
  • We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
  • We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
  • We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

• The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

See also:

• Teahouse
• Help desk
• Village pump
• Help manual

October 29

about wikipedia

how can i use it more efficiently? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.63.102.42 (talk) 06:58, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

For a start, asking more specific questions will generally inspire more helpful answers. —Bkell (talk) 08:30, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Amongst the vast array of pages at your command on Wikipedia via the search box on the left or by using a search engine like Google there is a page devoted specifically to 'it'. Hope that was more helpful :) Dmcq (talk) 08:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay I relent, how about phrasing a question like:

How do I phrase queries in the search box so I don't get irrelevant things?

How come Google gets things on Wikipedia which wiki itself doesn't?

Will I get full marks if I copy a article from wiki?

How reliable is wiki when it says somewhere is a hellhole and no-one in their right mind would be seen dead there?

Has wiki been compared for accuracy to other encyclopaedias?

Can I put my personal research into wiki?

Anyway you see the idea Dmcq (talk) 11:24, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

wiki is not the same as Wikipedia. 207.58.235.243 (talk) 16:50, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Look at Wikipedia:Welcome, then the Wikipedia:Tutorial. --h2g2bob (talk) 14:26, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

what is strategic procurement ?

i want to know abt the strategic procurement . What is it and how can one go abt it . What is the essentials of it. How it can benefit an organisation ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ggosain (talk • contribs) 07:05, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Assuming this is as much a homework question as it appears to be, does the glossary of your textbook indicate that another term for "strategic procurement" is strategic sourcing? -- kainaw™ 13:29, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to the Wikipedia Reference Desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misevaluation, but it is our policy here to not do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn how to solve such problems. Please attempt to solve the problem yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know. Thank you. DendodgeTalk^Contribs 15:33, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you start at Strategic sourcing and Procurement, then check the external links, references and 'see also' lists at the bottom of each article and go from there. Exxolon (talk) 23:08, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Mac Installation

I am using an iMac, running on 10.4.11, but the system has become corrupted. So I need to re-install. Obviously best to wipe and start over... but on Mac OS I do not know which files I should first back-up. (i.e. The iPhoto library). Naturally I have back-ups of all my working files. Shall appreciate guidance.86.194.251.131 (talk) 09:42, 29 October 2008 (UTC)DT

You should be able to reinstall the OS without wiping the hard-drive, thus saving your required files but replacing the OS. In what way has the system become corrupt? 194.221.133.226 (talk) 11:11, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm curious as to why you think you need to wipe out everything. Dismas|^(talk) 14:31, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Previous experience has shown that just replacing the OS is a stopgap if there is a deeper problem. Better, I feel, to wipe the disk and start over. But I don't (yet) understand OS X, and I can't find any guidance from Apple. So, please folks, what are the essential stored things within the OS (such as the iPhoto library) that I should back-up ?86.194.251.131 (talk) 16:24, 29 October 2008 (UTC)DT

Save your ENTIRE home directory and the home directory of other users and you will be fine, afaik. Kushal (talk) 21:53, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Assuming your applications are well-behaved (and by now, they should be), you need to back up the "Users" folder, and should probably back up the "Library" folder.

However, MacOS (unlike Windows or Linux) is self-contained. A simple re-install (without wiping the hard disk) will completely replace the OS with a new version, while leaving your documents and applications intact. --Carnildo (talk) 23:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks, just what I wanted to know.86.197.148.142 (talk) 15:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)DT

If you wanted to have OS X wipe itself clean and have all the applications reset their preferences, I am afraid that might not happen if you leave Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/ untouched. Maybe an easier route in this case is to create a new user account and start anew? If you want to back up everything in users and then wipe the hard disk clean, that's another matter. Kushal (talk) 00:53, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Network printers compatible with PS3

The latest verion of PlayStation 3 system software adds the following "Under [Printer Settings] > [Printer Selection], you can now select printers that support network connectivity" But I can't find either a list of compatible network printers, or details as to which protocol(s) they'd need to support.

I've tried asking Sony through their online support tool

Is there an updated list of compatible printers (expecially network ones) after the 2.50 firmware update? All I can find is (really long URL) with no mention of HP/Network printers that're now supported.

But I didn't have any joy

Dear Sir/Madam, Thank you for your recent correspondence. Unfortunately we do not have information on future game, download releases or updated compatible printers. For further information on these topics, please visit either of the following websites: Official PlayStation Website at: http://uk.playstation.com/ or The Official PlayStation Forums at: http://community.eu.playstation.com/forumdisplay.php?f=55&langid=4 I hope that this information is helpful, but if you should have any further queries, then please call the Network Gaming Careline on 08702 422 299 (national rate) where a member of our team will be happy to help you further. Please quote your Reference Number: 1176010 Our operating hours are between 8am - 10pm Monday to Friday, and 10am - 6pm Saturday and Sunday. Yours sincerely, Farrukh Mahmood PlayStation Network Gaming Careline Sony Computer Entertainment UK

Does anyone have any ideas as to what's compatible? Cheers, davidprior (talk) 13:53, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I didn't realize I could use my printer with my PS3. Just tried it. I pointed it to the IP address of my printer and selected PS (postscript) and it prints. I didn't have to install any drivers or anything since PS is a rather generic standard for printers. I know this doesn't answer your question, but thanks for letting me know I could do this. -- kainaw™ 01:25, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I imagine any postscript compatible printer (with some way to connect to the network, whether over ethernet or an adaptor) would work, I and I'd be willing to guess those are pretty easy to find a list of. I would try whatever printer you are currently using (especially if it has an ethernet port) before going out and buying anything. Good luck! DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 07:16, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Stacking transparent GIFs using CSS

Say I have some HTML code:

<img src="grass.gif" />
<img src="tree.gif" />
<img src="sprite.gif" />

All the images are the same size (32x32).

How would I go about stacking them without using absolute positioning? All besides the bottom layer have some degree of transparency.

All the images are within a single table cell, 32x32 pixels. I tried using position: relative; top: -32px; but it didn't resize the table cell's height.

Bad CSS would be OK as it's only a mockup. x42bn6 Talk Mess 14:55, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Couldn't you just make one image in Photoshop? If you don't have it, I'll do it for you - just poke me on my talk page. DendodgeTalk^Contribs 15:32, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

That might not be a good answer. He may be generating either the web page or the images on the fly. However, it's still possible that a PHP script could combine the images so that the user only has to download the single combined image APL (talk) 20:05, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Though that can be pretty processor intensive unless you set up a caching system. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 23:06, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Try using a negative margin-top. e.g., position: relative; margin-top: -32px;. In Safari on OSX that resizes the table cell as well. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:54, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

If you do not use absolute positioning, there is no HTML/CSS layout that is "stacked". Your only option is to fake it with backgrounds. Make a div with the first image as a background. Inside that, put in a second div with the second image as a background. Inside that, you can just put the third image. Logically, you'll have three images stacked - but HTML/CSS is not a programming language. It is markup. So, you are only suggesting that you want the three images stacked. The browser has the last word on the matter and may decide that since the middle div's background is covering the bottom div's background, there's no need to show the bottom div's background. That's when you head down the nasty road of hacking for one browser, which breaks another one, then you hack for that, which breaks another one... -- kainaw™ 01:21, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

This is incorrect. If you use the method I describe transparent GIFs will stack and the transparency will be cumulative. I tried it and it worked fine. I haven't figured out the order they stack in but it's probably predictable. At least in Safari. I've had problems with IE, Firefox, and Safari all even interpreting how to render absolutely positioned z-ordered elements in exactly the same way, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was some tweaking that needed to be done.--98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:30, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it worked, negative margins. Thanks. x42bn6 Talk Mess 14:58, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

changing motherboard on dell vostro 1400 laptop

I am Taradas from india. Recently, i had contacted dell support center for changing my motherboard. I would like to insert a new motherboard having NVIDIA 8400 video card for better game performance. Can u please tell me what could be the possible price for changing motherboard, in indian rupees. Or is it possible to change my video card which is a MOBILE INTEL 965 XPRESS CHIP SET FAMILY. Please respond at the earliest......... Remember my laptop is DELL VOSTRO 1400.

I'm not sure such a thing is even possible. Unlike desktop computers, the motherboard on a laptop is proprietary to the particular brand and model of laptop. Dell laptops are supposedly built to order and customers are expected to choose from the small range of options available when placing their order. You could go back to Dell Customer Support but, unless the laptop is faulty in some way, I doubt you will get much help. Astronaut (talk) 17:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yep - I agree. Laptops are simply not designed to be upgraded or modified in any way. There is zero chance of getting what you want. You'll either have to stick with what you have - or buy an engite new computer - but you should strongly consider getting a regular deskside PC instead. If you don't need the portability of a laptop (or if your existing laptop is good enough for 'mobile' use - and you could live with only having fancy graphics when you're at your desk) - then a deskside PC is a vastly better choice. My trusty deskside PC is now over 15 years old and originally ran Windows 3.11 - but since every single part of it has been replaced and/or upgraded perhaps a half dozen or a dozen times, it's as up-to-date as you could possibly wish. (If I'm honest - I probably haven't replaced the power cord!) The Ship of Theseus paradox applies here! Laptops a re a disaster in that regard. The stuff it's equipped with on the day you buy it is the stuff that'll be in it the day it gets hauled off to the landfill. You can maybe increase the amount of RAM - and probably replace the hard drive to get more space - but that's about extent of it. SteveBaker (talk) 18:57, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

BAD_POOL_HEADER BSOD OMGWTFBBQ!!!!

Alright, why the HELL do i keep getting BAD_POOL_HEADER bsods every damn time i start up my computer? What is a BAD_POOL_HEADER! This only happens when the following software is installed: TI-83 Application SDK and TI-83 GRAPHLINK. Yes, i uninstalled them completely (and just for fun deleted anything related to those programs including registry stuff, which i know how to remove, so that's not the problem) and i am still intermittently getting these error messages. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG!!! (PS i know i'm rather profane in this question, i'm just completely fed up with this computer (and myself)) 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 16:43, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Try this (second post). x42bn6 Talk Mess 17:07, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

AHA! i've found the problem. the file TICALC.SYS (my calculator driver) was overwritten by both the SDK and GRAPHLINK, causing errors in the registry concerning version info and such. THIS was the cause. I reinstalled the CORRECT driver from the TI website and now everything works fine. THANK YOU x42bn6! 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 19:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

SFRIO600.DLL

Question moved from Talk:Computer virus by Astronaut (talk) 17:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if this is a virus or something else, or a joke, but it runned itself when I plugged my USB memory into my computer. I have "Show all files" turned on, so I see there are two hidden files: 'SFRIO600.DLL' and 'AUTORUN.INF'. Upon activation it started to run the harddrive. I tried to "Disconnect saffely" (the USB memory), but it couldn't, so I plugged it out (then it showed a message that memory is not present (obviously the virus was requesting it)). I tried to turn of the computer trough menu, it stalled (saving changes to Windows). I tried the power button, it didn't turn off, I didn't want to press and wait, so I flipped the power switch on the power supply. (I write (from a different computer) here about this because virus reporting on the antivirus programs site suck really)

My antivirus program didn't react at all (AVG). Searching the web for 'sfrio600' I found nothing. Searching just 'sfrio' I've found a lunatic site called: 'sfrio.com'

What is this? What to do next? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.101.85.164 (talk) 09:03, 29 October 2008

I couldn't find anything about a sfrio600.dll, but I did find something about a sprio600.dll that said that DLL is used by Rio 600 MP3 players. Do you have a RIO device?Laenir (talk) 19:27, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I got that virus on some of the computers on University here. That's the trouble with public computers - never know who visitred what and why. Maybe somebody has what you asked... Why? My guess is that 'sfrio.com' has to to with it (the text they wrote points to it). Maybe that's what term 'poisoned site' refers to... if only I knew what 'poisenod site' means... if there actually is such term...

Search for one type of Wikipedia templates

Is this possible?

I've formulated a new WikiProject named WikiProject Haystack, which aims to highlight the most essential in Wikipedia by gathering the most important information into special templates. However, it would have full potential only if such templates could be searched separately. So before I officially propose it I'd like to know - is it possible to sort out such templates in the search-engine. One example would be to add another namespace, such as Essentials:(Article name). If it's impossible, could the search engine be modified to search through templates of a certain category? Mikael Häggström (talk) 17:28, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The namespaces is hardcoded in, so it would take alterations of the media wiki software to make this possible within the wikipedia software. Other than that, external applications could be made to cross index Special:Whatlinkshere with a search output. Taemyr (talk) 17:51, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, perhaps it would be worth to make those alterations in the software. Since several pages might link to each template, and not only the main article, I don't see how the Whatlinkshere would help. Could there perhaps rather be some kind of marker inside each template that search engines (preferably Wikipedia's own one) could snap up? Mikael Häggström (talk) 18:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

What links here marks those pages that a given template is transcluded onto. So those pages on Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:AfDM marked with (transclusion) are the articles that are currently up for AfD. Taemyr (talk) 18:56, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I see. Still, it seems like those templates need to have an additional marker or something like that to separate them from any other templates transcluded into the articles. Mikael Häggström (talk) 05:52, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

should I make an old swap partition fat32 or ntfs?

I have an old computer (666 mhz pentium III w/ 256 mb ram) I installed windows xp on. I wiped and created ntfs for the main partition, but also created a second partition for the swap.

Should my swap partition be formatted fat32 or ntfs?

Thank you!

If you are only using Windows XP and do not plan to dual boot, go ahead and format it as ntfs. Kushal (talk) 21:51, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

it wouldn't be slower? this is a very old machine!

Shouldn't matter. A swap file is a single large file; if it's the only thing on the swap partition, the differences between the formats won't be noticable. --Carnildo (talk) 23:27, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd say its a smart move on your part if you have swap in a separate partition. By the way, I wonder how easy it is to have the home directory under a different partition too ... documents and settings in different partition takes you to PlanetAMD64. I am only suggesting this if your computer has recently been formatted and therefore does not have any documents yet. Defragmenting in my Pentium 4/1.5 GHz, 40 GB hard disk was not that fun. Kushal (talk) 06:51, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

help desk assignment

hi im a student at Institute of Applied Learning and i am currently working on a help desk assignment and i would like to ask a few question about working of a help desk 1.What kind of script do help desk use? 2.What type of problems they encounter? 3.How do they record problems?

Um ... MediaWiki and perhaps a bot for archiving and a bot for signing unsigned posts ?? Why would RD have any special ... uh oh ... is that a homework question? Kushal (talk) 22:18, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Ooh, busted. And... wait a sec, how did that post not trigger the auto-sign bot? flaminglawyer^c 04:35, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Sinebot is AWOL. --LarryMac | Talk 14:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Help desks answer the phone and help people on the topic they are set up for. Computer help desks are very common, answering questions about how to use programs and what to do about problems like broken computer, frozen screen, cannot log on, internet is slow... There is special problem management software that records details about the reporter, problem, resolution. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:33, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

October 30

Completely copying hdd

Would it be plausible/easy to copy all of the contents of a hard drive (including the OS) to another one? Mine is gettin' full, and I want to switch to a bigger, new one, but I want to keep all my files and stuff. Hypothetically, I could just plug the old hard drive into the master, and the new one into the slave, and just copy it all over using Windows (no fancy-schmancy cmd-line crap), right? flaminglawyer^c 00:43, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

As far as I understand it, you could copy all the data (pictures, text, movies, mp3s) but not the installed programs - you'd need to reinstall them on the new drive as they need to modify the registry etc to work. Exxolon (talk) 01:02, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

You can't just copy it over in the Windows interface—it won't copy certain system files correctly (like the registry) and the master boot record won't copy.

What you ought to do is set it up master/slave, and then use a program to "clone" one drive to the other. I recommend GParted (downloads as a CD that you use to boot up the computer with—it's Linux but it has a super easy, friendly interface), personally.

After that you'll probably have to boot into the Recovery Console and run "fixmbr" to fix the master boot record.

So a little command line stuff but not too tough. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:08, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

And that clones the OS and the data - good so far. But... could you elaborate on this whole "master boot record" thing? I've never heard of it before, and it seems to me that I need to know what I'm messing with before I mess with it. And thanks for directing me to the super-easy thing; I've tried a real Linux version before, and it was scary. flaminglawyer^c 04:32, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

And explain this "Recovery console," never heard of it either. flaminglawyer^c 04:33, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Basically, there is a little hidden file that is not on your hard drive itself yet tells your computer how to boot up correctly. What it means in practice is that if you just clone the contents of one drive to another, and then try to boot up off of that other drive, you might end up with just a black screen—the computer won't be able to figure out where it is supposed to boot. If that happens, then you can start up the Recovery Console by putting in your Windows CD and starting up from the CD—I think you hold down F8 while booting and it will give you a menu. The Recovery Console is basically like DOS—you'll see a command line prompt. Just type in "fixmbr" and it should fix the problem, if you are getting the "blank screen" problem. Then reboot and you should be good. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 21:02, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Try Clonezilla. It works well. manya (talk) 10:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible to run the Recovery Console thing without a Windows disc? My comp came with XP, and I'm not about to spend 300 bucks on a CD that I'll only use once. flaminglawyer^c 21:47, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

This page has a few links that ought to let you create a Recovery Console disk either on a floppy or on a CD. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 16:02, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Score. Done. Thanks to all. flaminglawyer^c 02:06, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Singularity functions in Ti-89/84+

Does anyone know how to plot singularity functions/use macaulay brackets in a Ti-89 or a Ti-84+? I need to be able to plot functions such as y = x^2 - <x-5>^3. So I need the <x-5>^3 term to only appear when x>5 (it's equal to zero when x<5)

Thanks! --Fir0002 06:28, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Not sure I fully understand your question, but from what I take of it, can't you just graph the example equation and then a partial (just y = x^2) and see where they intersect? I don't think that's exactly the right way to do it, but something like that. Also, try the math reference desk. DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 07:34, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

There's probably an easier way than this, but I can't find my calculator to try it out. Anyway, you should be able to create the partial equations as separate functions, thereby making your graph piecewise. Just multiply the function by a logic test: #F outputs as 0 and #T outputs as 1. You'll need to write different functions including/excluding terms as necessary and include the applicable logic in the function. You could do the example above as such: Y1=(x<5)(x^2) Y2=(X>=5)(X^2-(x-5)^3). Does that suit your needs? --Shaggorama (talk) 09:03, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

That's what I'm currently doing, but the equations I'm doing have three or four such terms with varying "turn on" points and it's a bit of pain to have to type out several versions of the equation. I was hoping there was an inbuilt function which could handle this kind of thing. --Fir0002 09:54, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

If what Shaggorama suggests works, can't you just do Y1=x^2-(x>5)(x-5)^3? See also Iverson bracket: the Macaulay bracket $\{x\}\equiv x[x>0]$. --Tardis (talk) 15:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't let you do a (x>5) term for graphing "argument must be an expression". So unfortunately that won't work --Fir0002 23:14, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Does the calculator have a 'sign' function (ie a function that returns -1 if the input is negative, zero if the input is zero and +1 if the input is positive)? If so then you can 'fake' (x>5) using (sign(x-5)+1)/2 (well, more or less - it doesn't quite work when x is EXACTLY equal to 5...you can get it exactly right if you also have the 'abs' function but it starts to get complicated!). SteveBaker (talk) 01:17, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah that is an option, and I might use if I really want everything in a single graph but at 15 characters it's a little unwieldy for my purposes. Thanks anyway, but I guess these calculators can't do singularity functions with <> or equivalent. --Fir0002 04:57, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I found an alternate method that puts the whole thing on a single line, but it ain't pretty. You could probably build a pretty lightweight program that could automatically spit out the singularity function for you (or at least the nastier part of the equation). --Shaggorama (talk) 05:41, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

The TI-84 will let you include (x>5) in an expression to be graphed: it will be equal to 0 if false and 1 if true. The TI-89 doesn't let you do that, but it does let you define your own functions, so you can just write your own function to act as an Iverson bracket or something and use that. —Bkell (talk) 20:38, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Perfect - thanks a lot Bkell --Fir0002 05:37, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Multi touch in XP

For those of you that haven't seen it, this techie Johnny Chung Lee figured out a really simple trick that allows you to use a wiimote and an IR pen to create interactive surfaces, such as an interactive whiteboard or touch screen. The software he developed also has multi-touch capabilities, but windows XP doesn't. Not natively anyway. Dell recently developed a new firmware update giving multitouch gesture support for their latitude line of tablet PCs (a feature windows was apprently planning on holding onto for win7). I have an XP desktop (dell even) and wanted to know if there was anyway I could make my XP multitouch compatible with Lee's wiimote hack. --Shaggorama (talk) 09:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

As you said, Dell's new firmware is only for displays on tablet PCs. AFAIK, it is not possible to get multi-touch on contemporary desktop without additional hardware. Have you tried Lee's wiimote hack yet? Kushal (talk) 22:38, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Computer Won't Even Turn On!

You may recognize me as the guy who has the totally-screwed-up computer and is always asking stuff. Well, here's another puzzler. When i went to start my computer, it wouldn't start. At all. no fan action, no hard drive action, no nothing. The power cables are all connected, the hard drive is completely connected, and all the fans are working properly (i tested them on an older power supply). All my expansion cards are seated properly, as are my memory modules. Windows had run its automatic update thingie while i was sleeping and i awoke to find my computer no longer functional. Why did this happen? 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 13:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

If the fans aren't turning at all, it is most likely a broken power supply. They are made from electronic components and break just as much as anything else that we pump a lot of electrons through. Nothing special or weird about it. -- kainaw™ 13:25, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Kainaw, the PS probably failed. You said you tested the fans with another power supply; did you have that old power supply plugged into the same outlet as your possibly malfunctioning one? It's a long shot, but you may want to make sure it's not the power outlet with the issue. Laenir (talk) 14:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not the outlet or the power supply (i tested the power supply and the outlet just to be sure). I just got the BIOS logo to come up for about half a second before it turned off again. Also, something made some weird noise like a food processor grinding bricks. 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 16:02, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The question I have to ask (and please forgive me for that) is do you hear any beeps and if yes, could you describe those beeps (number of beeps, duration of each beep) to us here along with manufacturer and make of your motherboard. 12.169.180.178 (talk) 16:07, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah - if you hear beeps, that's the CPU trying to tell you what's wrong when things are so broken that it can't get to the display or even to main memory! The number of beeps tells you what's wrong - but sadly every motherboard seems to have a different set of 'beep codes' - so you really need the motherboard manual to figure out what it's telling you.

When the power seems to fail, it could still be the motherboard. The push-button that does the work of power switch AND reset button on many modern PC's is hooked up to some circuitry on the motherboard. The power supply provides a tiny amount of current to keep it running even when the PC is theoretically turned off - and the circuit is responsible for telling the power supply to go to full voltage when you push the button again. So that circuit could be broken. I had a PC for a while that wouldn't turn on - but I could trick it into doing so by shorting a couple of wires together on the power supply connector. Once the PC was started up - it would reliably keep running until you shut if off again. However, I'd put my money on it being the power supply - on the general principle that when you don't know which thing is broken - you're better off replacing the cheaper part first! However, if swapping out the power supply doesn't work - then you might need a new motherboard.

The grinding noise you hear sounds like it could be a fan that's busted. The CPU would get hot fairly quickly and (if it's a reasonably modern one) may turn itself off to protect itself. Urgh...this is not nice!

SteveBaker (talk) 01:09, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Fans can keep a computer from turning on. I was rather happy with myself a few eons ago when my two month old Amiga 4000 wouldn't turn on and, for some reason, I decided to replace the power supply fan. After replacing it with a $2 fan from a local electronics dealer, it came right back on and worked great. -- kainaw™ 01:14, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

No beeps at all...but i did manage to find something else...the power switch connector had snapped off the motherboard...i managed to short the connections to start the computer. The grinding noise was my case fan ripping the power switch connector off the motherboard. 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 13:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

It might just legit be broken, just as all things eventually get. How old is it? Yakeyglee (talk) 03:39, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

WEBSPHERE DEVELOPER

Hi,

I would like to have a clarification, if WEBSPHERE PORTAL DEVELOPER and WEBSPHERE DEVELOPER are the same. If there is a difference how?!! please clarify me on this.

I'd guess the first is interested in developers with knowledge of IBM's Websphere. The second wants someone who's had experience with the Portals bit of Websphere (see Websphere#Portals). --h2g2bob (talk) 19:19, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Very likely, the Portal developer will specialize in JSP programming while the Websphere internals programmer will specialize in the related Java EE programming and software-engineering technology. In any case, the specific tasks of these individual jobs are going to be highly dependent on particular projects. Nimur (talk) 17:46, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Visual .net remotely asess user

I wanted to make a program for my school so teachers could net send messages to students, and one thing I wanted to do was make it so that I could have them find the username of the currently logged on user. I have no idea how to do this in visual net, but I know how to find current user on current system.

   Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal _
   e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
   lblUserName.Text = SystemInformation.UserName
   End Sub

Is there a way to get it so you can see current user on remote system? Forai (talk) 22:39, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but psloggedon will do the job: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897545.aspx .--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 22:58, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I saw that and figured that would be my last resort, I wanted to use only visual basic coding but if nobody has any other ideas then I can go with that Forai (talk) 23:18, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

It looks like there is a global variable, Environment.UserName (in fact it looks like Environment will give you access to all Windows environment variables. Nimur (talk) 17:51, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

October 31

Headphones

Why is only one side working? It doesn't look damaged, nor has it endured any, except for the fact that part of the wires are visible, and when I jiggle them a little bit, both sides stop working or one side regains sound but the other won't. They're not cheap headphones, so what's up with that? --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 04:18, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

The jiggle test is pretty indicative of a loose or crossed wire. If their nice enough and still udner warranty, try to have em repaired. Otherwise I'd suggest finding a screwdriver and sautering iron and doing it yourself (at your own risk). Or just get a new pair. For now I'd suggest you stop jiggling them, as that may be aggravating the problem (e..g. twisting loose wires) --Shaggorama (talk) 05:12, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 05:44, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

fstab permissions

Resolved

 – Thanks, changed the permissions by chmod. - Unpopular Opinion (talk) 08:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I am trying to mount an ext3 partition in my home folder, this is the line I added to fstab

/dev/sda5       /home/user/mountpoint    ext3    defaults                0       0

I can see the mounted folders in /home/user/mountpoint but I'm not able to access the files; when I click on it, it says I do not have read/write permission to these files. What should I change in the fstab options? Thanks - Unpopular Opinion (talk) 06:38, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

It's probably just a file permissions issue. Doing a sudo chown user -R /home/user/mountpoint should fix it. --Sean 12:50, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Or if you don't care about file permissions change defaults to defaults,umask=0000 --wj32 ^t/c 04:37, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually nevermind, that only works for vfat and hfs. --wj32 ^t/c 10:36, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

USB

Help! My USB ports have stopped working. I need to urgently print and scan a document. My motherboard is ASUS A8N-VM. I can power up an iPod, but the PC fails to detect any hardware on both Windows Vista and Linux (Ubuntu). I need to resolve this urgently. =Nichalp «Talk»= 10:40, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

• Do you already have the document on the USB disc or is it on your harddrive? If it is on the USB, go to a copyshop. If it is still on your computer, try emailing it to someone and print it there. -- Mgm|^(talk) 13:09, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I managed to resolve it by doing the latter, printing it out somewhere else, but no luck on the USB ports. I checked my BIOS settings and USB 1, 2 and legacy is enabled. =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:49, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried reinstalling the USB driver? DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 18:47, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm assuming it has to do with hardware, because the problem is OS independent. I read somewhere that you need to drain your system clock... but that's drastic I guess. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:59, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like a hardware failure rather than a configuration problem: according to the manual, there are no jumpers or BIOS settings that can disable USB. You could try clearing the CMOS RAM (unplug the computer, remove the CMOS battery, move the CLRTC jumper from pins 1-2 to pins 2-3, wait 15 seconds, move the jumper back, replace the battery, plug the computer back in), but I don't expect it to help. Since all the USB ports have failed, it's probably the controller chip rather than the ports themselves. If you've got a PCI bracket with USB ports or a case with front-panel ports, try hooking those up -- sometimes they're on a separate controller from the on-board ports. --Carnildo (talk) 22:23, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Open office writer problems!

Resolved

Hi every time I draw a table on open office writer - save it, close open office and try to come back to my work the table has gone and my data is all mixed up on the page. Is there any way I can prevent this as I have had to re-draw my table several times now and if I exit open office I will have to do it again. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.222.241.164 (talk) 11:07, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

What are you saving the file as? If you're saving as something like .rtf or .txt instead of .doc or the native Open Office Writer document type, it may just be that the file type you're saving as doesn't support the formatting you're doing. Laenir (talk) 13:40, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm saving the file as a microsoft word 97/2000/XP file. Although my computer doesn't have microsoft office I generally save my open office documents as word documents so I can print them on another computer which only has MS office. Could the fact that I don't have microsoft office on my computer be anything to do with it? Thanks again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.222.241.50 (talk) 17:26, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

That should not be a problem at all. However, I propose a stop-gap measure for you. Save all your documents in the native ODF. If you are not editing the document from another computer, export a final copy of your document as PDF. Just in case, also take a .doc exported copy with you. Kushal (talk) 12:19, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Saving the document as a native open office file has resolved the problem - Thanks a lot! :)

Glad to be of any help! Kushal (talk) 03:37, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

crappy keyboard probs

I bought a cheap keyboard - the caps lock is right next to the A key and the Insert key is right next to the Delete key - I keep accidentally hitting them. Is there a simple way of disabling them? Adambrowne666 (talk) 12:14, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

A quick Google search brought up this link. It involves playing with the registry, so don't do it if you don't know what you're doing or not in a position to fix it. However, getting using new keyboard always takes time (for instance, the keyboard on my desktop has an unusual layout of the home/ins/end/pageup keys, whereas my notebook has them all over the place, some requiring the use of function keys. It took me a while to get used to both, so stick with it! Booglamay (talk) - 12:21, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

KeyTweak is a utility program that can be used to remap and/or disable keys for computers running Microsoft Windows. [1] --Aude (talk) 13:38, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Where are those keys supposed to be? I rarely see keyboards that do otherwise (mostly those that put Caps Lock at the very lower-left). --Tardis (talk) 16:05, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

The OP may mean that the top face of the CapsLock is right beside the A key, where my CapsLock key is actually uniquely shaped, with the portion beside the A key stepped down so that (functionally) there's a gap between the two, even though they're side by side. Mine is just a cheap Acer, but I've seen the setup before; no idea how common it is. Matt Deres (talk) 19:04, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

For CapsLock (which I hate with a passion) I have used several solutions:

1. Simple: Remove the keycap - flush it down the nearest toilet.
2. Superglue: Remove the keycap - squirt superglue into the hole it leaves behind. Gently replace the keycap (do NOT depress it or it'll stick in the DOWN position!).
3. Reversible: Lever off the keycap. Generally - there is a cylindical plastic projection beneath with the actual switch at the bottom. You can roll up a piece of paper or thin card such that it wraps around the outside of the cylinder but is a little taller - taping this in place prevents the key from going down - but is easily reversible just by sliding your paper tube off of the plastic cylinder.
4. Reprogramming. With some operating systems, there is a 'preferences' option to disable the capslock key.

SteveBaker (talk) 03:56, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

yep; just pop the capslock key off. for those who don't know, the keytops are just snapped into the switch mechanisms and can be popped off and back on. even when they're off, the stem of the switch sticks up so you can hit the key if you want to.

for another option, the accessibility section of control panel hides an option that makes the lock keys (scroll, num, caps) beep one way when they toggle on and another when they toggle off. should be on for the default, as far as i'm concerned. Gzuckier (talk) 05:48, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Great! - I excised the offending keys like carious teeth! - thanks all 121.91.71.120 (talk) 00:41, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Help! Can't log onto Internet on my laptop.

This is what happens:
1. I click on the Internet icon. It waits a while then it says "Work Offline: No connection to the Internet is currently available. To view Internet content that has been saved on your computer, click Work Offline. Click Try again to attempt to connect."
2. I click on "Try Again" then it says " Internet Explorer cannot display webpage".
3. I open the Wireless Network Connection. I double click on my landlord's wireless network which says "(landlord's name) - unsecured wireless network" and it shows full strength signal. Then I click on "Connect".
4. Then its says "Connected" but when I try to open Internet Explorer again, the same thing happens again at step #1.

I don't understand. I used to be able to log onto the internet fine with my landlord's wireless network (which by the way he allows me to do). But recently I can't at my apartment. However if I bring my laptop to work, it connects fine. Please help! --Emyn ned (talk) 13:31, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried connecting to other websites, or using a program other than IE to access the internet? If you have access to the modem and router, have you checked they're plugged in and restarted them? Algebraist 13:48, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me for my ignorance, but how do you connect to other websites or use a program other than IE? How do you know if you have access to their modem and router? --Emyn ned (talk) 13:59, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

[I indented your reply to Algebraist's comment for you.] There are many web browsers, like Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera. By "access" Algebraist means physical access — can you check that they're working and possibly power cycle them? --Tardis (talk) 16:09, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

When Internet Explorer displays the "Cannot display webpage" message, try clicking on the "Diagnose Connection Problems" button and follow all the steps. It might repair the problem. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 20:17, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Finding Errors in Excel

I am trying to find specific errors on an excel spreadsheet. I have columns that do Vlookups, and they generate a lot of #N/A (Value Not Avaliable error) errors. These are actually not a problem. Somtimes #REF! errors will happen, and these errors cause major problems. The sheet is large (1200 rows X 20 colums), so it can be kind of hard to find errors just by looking.

I can use the built in error checker, but it finds all of the #N/A errors along with the #ref! errors. I can write a macro to check IsError(ActiveCell.Value) but it also finds all formula errors.

So does anyone know how I can find ONLY the #REF! errors, while ignoring the #N/A errors? In other words how can I see the actual error code, so I can write a macro that only finds #REF!

thanks --Czmtzc (talk) 14:12, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Can't you filter the columns to only look for "#N/A"? Laenir (talk) 14:31, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Laenir's answer is the solution if the errors are confined to 1 (or a few) columns. #REF! are a referencing problem which I would assume are specific to your code/formulas, so I would consider checking your formulas in general, as they shouldn't #REF! unless you've made a mistake in the referencing. Alternatively you could write a macro that searches for #REF across each row and then if it finds one adds a value to a column which you can then filter (should be a simple macro - record yourself searching for #REF and use that to build a loop that goes through the rows and write code to add a value)/ 194.221.133.226 (talk) 15:53, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Here's an interesting observation. A VLOOKUP formula with a column index number that is greater than the number of columns in the lookup table will return #REF! if Range Lookup is TRUE or if it finds the lookup value in the first column of the lookup table. But the same formula will return #N/A if Range Lookup is FALSE and it does not find the lookup value in the first column of the lookup table - even though it has been given an invalid column index number. So possibly your #REF! and your #N/A errors are due to malformed VLOOKUPs, and are equally serious. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, the #N/A errors are from lookups taht aren't found. THe #ref! errors are when the lovely users delete a cell. --Czmtzc (talk) 21:39, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

If a cell you have found has an error e.g. IsError(cell)=True then the value of that cell tells you what error it is. A value of Error 2023 is a #REF! error.

Pass the value of the cell to this function and it returns the error. E.g.

If IsError(Range("A1").Value) = True Then Debug.Print ErrorName(Range("A1").Value)

Private Function ErrorName(errVal As Variant) As String
   Select Case CStr(errVal)
   Case "Error 2023"
       ErrorName = "#REF!"
   Case "Error 2042"
       ErrorName = "#N/A!"
   Case "Error 2007"
       ErrorName = "#DIV/0!"
   Case "Error 2015"
       ErrorName = "#VALUE!"
   Case "Error 2029"
       ErrorName = "#NAME?"
   Case "Error 2036"
       ErrorName = "#NUM!"
   Case "Error 2000"
       ErrorName = "#NULL!"
   End Select
End Function

Therefore, in your macro you can look to find just ref errors when you cycle through all the cells you want to check. I had the same problem as you so I wrote an excel add-in with a form, to highlight all the errors in an open book, with the option for ignoring certain errors, like #N/A!. -Phydaux (talk) 15:38, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

EXCELent!. That was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks Phydaux I really appreciate it. --Czmtzc (talk) 21:37, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

iPlayer

The iPlayer download for computers runs out after 30 days, is this the same for the download for portable devices? Thanks. 92.5.109.187 (talk) 14:41, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

No - They're available to download for 7 days, then expire after 7 days (annoyingly). The relevant help page is here — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 17:57, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Reaching localhost when I am offline

I have installed a program (Sage (computer algebra system)) that runs over my browser (Firefox) using the address http://localhost:8000. Unhappily, it only works when I am online.

What is wrong? Shouldn't localhost be always available? Mr.K. (talk) 17:41, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Try 127.0.0.1. Also check if a proxy is enabled in Options -> Advanced -> Network. If it is, try entering localhost, 127.0.0.1 into "No proxy for" box. --grawity 19:45, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Phantom Drive Labels in Vista

So when I open up my computer, I see all of my drives, but it doesn't show any of their names unless I hover the mouse over a drive. Unless my memory is going, they did show up until recently. I'm viewing large icons sorted by type. I feel stupid asking, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to make them show up. Also, none of the icon views (as opposed to list and details) show the labels. Argh! Thanks in advance. DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 18:37, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Does this link help? Laenir (talk) 18:53, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

While it seems that person has the exact same problem as me, the solution there doesn't solve my problem. I tried it, and "show drive letters" was already checked. Any other ideas? DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 18:59, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

suppressing a page with nothing on it

In word I can't seem to get rid of a blank second page (the first page is jammed with stuff but if I try to delete whatever might be on the second page (which looks completely blank) I end up also deleting the last thing on the first page. Is there a way to just suppress the second page (to end up with a one-page resume?) Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.209.97 (talk) 19:17, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Try placing the cursor immediately after the last character on the first page and hitting the "Delete" button (possibly a few times). If that doesn't work, then you could try to reduce the font size or remove any extraneous blank lines.--Zerozal (talk) 19:25, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

the reason that doesn't work is because the last character is inside a table. there's nothing outside the table, and try as I might the only way to delete the next page is to delete the last table as well, which I don't want to do . It really looks fine the way it is, I think I'll just keep it if no one has a suggestion (your second one would move up the last table so it's not flush with the bottom of the first page, which I don't want to do either...)

Sometimes Word will simply not let you suppress an additional page if for some reason it decides that the first page goes over the limit (even when it does not actually go over the limit). I have had the same problem at times. The bottom line is that, as Louis Menand said, "Microsoft Word is a terrible program." I know of no fixes other than trying to reduce the content on the first page. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:48, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! I'll just live with it. I've sent the resume...

Just like that? In word? I hope you are not applying to Adobe Systems right now. (just kidding, don't even worry about it) What I have found useful is to go to the second page and press back space after getting rid of all table elements in the second page by cutting them (not deleting them). Please try that. Kushal (talk) 11:10, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Reducing the bottom margin would not change the appearance of your page, and would make the second page go away. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 11:45, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Alternative document formats like PDF could help, if you are sending in resumes. Consider "printing" only the first page into a PDF file using software such as PDFCreator. Kushal (talk) 22:31, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible with XUL?

I'm new to XUL. But before I dive head first into it, I want to know if it is possible for me to read the browsers history files using XUL extensions. Also, can I write to a particular file on the disk using a XUL-based firefox extension?--Seraphiel (talk) 20:04, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Random counting/picking

I want to write some code (in Python script) that can randomly "count" from x to y, picking each number in the range only once until all the numbers in the range have been chosen. Is there a name for an efficient algorithm or function that can already do this? I'd really like to give it a seed argument too, so I could replay the order it picked the numbers again. Antsoup (talk) 20:21, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

See Knuth shuffle for the algorithm, and random.shuffle(range(x,y)) for the library function. Unless $y-x$ is large, this should be fine. --Tardis (talk) 20:54, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Because the shuffle algorithm uses a random function, you can specifically use a seeded random. Then, when you call the shuffle function, the random numbers used in the shuffle will the same random numbers used each time the randomizer is seeded with the same value before use. The advantage of using shuffle is that your function can take two parameters, count and seed (optional), and return an array of randomly ordered integers from 1 to count. Then, you can pull one of the integers off one at a time or undo a count (back up one) if you like. -- kainaw™ 20:59, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

This is great, exactly what I was looking for! Didn't even think of shuffle. Thanks a lot! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Antsoup (talk • contribs) 21:12, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Shows what I know. Coming from a theoretical computer science background, I would have said:

“

tocount = range(1,10) #change to suit yourself
>>> while len(tocount):
	next = tocount[0]
	tocount.remove(next)
	print next
	#tocount.shuffle() #how?

”

:-P

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.209.97 (talk) 21:57, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

If I had to write it:

   source = range(N)
   sink = []
   while source:
       sink.append(source.pop(randrange(0,len(source))))

—Tamfang (talk) 07:45, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

You're a perl programmer and you know it!  :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.209.97 (talk) 11:36, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Is that good and/or bad? I've written only a few lines of Perl long ago. —Tamfang (talk) 01:47, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Google question

How do you change the default page from .ca to .com? Even though I retype the address in the Internet options in Conrol Panel, it still stays the same. It's even harder to change in other browsers, such as Firefox. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 20:43, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

What default page? Google's homepage when you go to www.google.com? They geotarget their audience and, if they think you are in Canada, they send you to www.google.ca. I have heard many people say that if you install the Google Toolbar you can set your default locale (to US) and get www.google.com as the default. -- kainaw™ 21:03, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I believe you can change it using the Google toolbar. If you dont use it, then here is a link to go to google.com overriding the geotarget script. You can see this link on google.ca too.--thunderboltz^(TALK) 21:09, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I think a cookie is set if you click the link "Go to Google.com" at the bottom-right of the homepage. In the future you should get to google.com when you type google.com... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.209.97 (talk) 21:19, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 21:46, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

If you can't get any of that to work, I'd suggest two things you could do: 1. You could put a link to google on your bookmarks bar, or you could also just set it as your homepage if you wanted to just access it from there. At least on the older versions of firefox (such as firefox 2) you could change your bookmarks and change the keyword to google or google.com and then when you type that in the addressbar, it would redirect to the bookmark, which you could set as google.ca. I think it rather just appears in the dropdown menu and you can't just type and press enter anymore, but I'm not sure. Yakeyglee (talk) 23:28, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

where do people learn Oracle?

so Oracle is huge, but computer science programs dont include it much, it's not a slashdot topic, etc. so where do all these Oracle dba's come from? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.209.97 (talk) 22:11, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

They learn on the job. You can learn about databases in a computer science program but that'll be about how they actually work - eg "how exactly do you implement indexing of a table", interesting stuff with broad relevance. What a DBA needs to be able to do is more practical, and the knowledge required would not be interesting or worth learning outside of a business context, eg "where should we apply connection pooling first to improve performance". It's not something that you could teach outside of the workplace. And would be very boring if you tried. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.217.161.173 (talk) 18:08, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

You can take courses from Oracle itself. See a list here. I imagine most people going this route are probably sponsored by their employers. TresÁrboles (talk) 19:44, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

There are also some colleges/universities offering Masters degrees in Database Systems (e.g. Westminster in the UK), and others which offer a more general Masters in the computer science department called something like Information Systems, which may include a significant component on database theory, SQL, and one or more popular database systems. Some people may take these while in employment but Information Systems courses seem quite popular among young people just out of uni. The exact database you use may vary - though Westminster does use Oracle, others may use the cheaper MySQL - but the basic principles are the same.

As an aside, I've noticed that a lot of institutions are shy of using the word "database" in their prospectuses, probably because of the reputation for boringness - despite the centrality of databases to many fun internet applications, even Wikipedia. Also, you have to watch because Information Systems can be confused with Information Science, which is more for librarians.--Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 14:44, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Google

I'm surprised that Google did not have a Hallowe'en logo on their front page. Why didn't they? 124.180.143.48 (talk) 22:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I could have sworn they had one up earlier! (At least on google.ca) . Can anyone else confirm? They might have felt great Christian backlash... :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.209.97 (talk) 22:21, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

They have one up for me. Here's the link. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 23:11, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

They sure do have a Halloween logo on the front page; how long ago did you check it? Yakeyglee (talk) 23:24, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

They emphatically don't for me right now (four tildes = 82.124.209.97 (talk) 23:48, 31 October 2008 (UTC) ). Is it because I'm geographically in France? In every browser, no matter how I load the English www.google.com, I can't get to a halloween picture :(. GOogle have RUINED halloween for me...

Maybe it's because it's November 1 in France already? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:11, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Yep - I'm still seeing it here in Texas at 10:45pm local time. SteveBaker (talk) 03:45, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I was playing around with URL's and tried http://www.google.us which redirected to http://www.google.com/webhp. Perhaps the latter is a nonredirecting portal. I'm in the US, so I can't tell. -- Tcncv (talk) 04:09, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

November 1

php - where do i start?

I have read (lightly) the W3 tutorial for PHP; I know some basic code, but don't understand how to set it up. I am hosting my website using (site), if that makes any difference. I have a MySQL database already set up ( .../_1 ), I have something called "PHP MyAdmin," which I am assuming has something to do with PHP. Help? flaminglawyer^c 05:36, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

The PHPMyAdmin is a control panel for your MySQL database, written in PHP. I don't know much about the language, but maybe if you read some more tutorials and examples, then that would work for you... And another thing - don't rush with a big project in PHP that you probably won't finish; start with some guestbooks and other simple codes, then proceed with the more difficult ones once you learn more about it. Blake Gripling (talk) 07:14, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

You probably don't need to do anything to set it up - your hosting providers have already done that for you. Just create a file in Notepad with your code in, save it with a .php extension, and upload it to your server. Try saving this:

<?php echo "Hello world!" ?>

as helloworld.php and uploading it. When you visit yourdomain/helloworld.php you should see the words "Hello world!" and nothing else. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 11:58, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Also, try:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Save that, upload it, and visit it. You'll see a lot of info about the php install on your server. -- kainaw™ 12:30, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Another thing... on the W3 tutorial, it has stuff about dates and stuff. Do I have to do something to let mySQL know that the date is Fri, or does it come with dates/times already programmed? flaminglawyer^c 17:29, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

MySQL is just a database. You just store data in it and manipulate data in it. If you have a date in the database, like 11-02-2008, stored as a string, then you can use PHP to figure out what day of the week this is. My recommendation with PHP is to download a copy of the manual to your hard drive and use the function lookups religiously. They usually give examples that are pretty clear.

My other recommendation is that if you are just wanting to play around and learn PHP/MySQL, don't do it with a remote server, as that can be a pain. Install it locally (see WAMP)—it'll save you a lot of time in just playing with things. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 18:48, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

How do I create-protect titles in my wiki?

OK, so I run a wiki, and there are cases of spammers posting Viagra and porn crap in my site. They usually make their spam posts under the title wiki/index.php or index.php, and I want to lock them to prevent editing. The problem is that my MediaWiki install doesn't allow such an operation, even though I seem to have the proper plugins/extensions. Any suggestions? Blake Gripling (talk) 07:12, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Don't run mediawiki, so can't give any first-hand information, but look at this guide on combatting spam on MediaWiki installation, including instructions for adding a captcha. 83.252.187.213 (talk) 12:41, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki is customisable in a bazillion ways - most of which Wikipedia doesn't use - but you can.

What I do is this:

• On your server, look in the 'wiki' directory (or wherever you installed MediaWiki) - there are two files you care about:
  • LocalSettings.php -- where you set up how you want your Wiki to work.
  • includes/DefaultSettings.php -- where the defaults for all of those settings live.
• Locate the following stuff in the defaults file:

   // Implicit group for all visitors
   $wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = true;
   ...
   // Implicit group for all logged-in accounts
   ...
   // Implicit group for accounts that pass $wgAutoConfirmAge
   ...
   // Implicit group for accounts with confirmed email addresses

• This lets you decide who can do what. Copy this section into your LocalSettings.php file and there you can alter them.
• Each line that starts '$wgGroupPermissions' sets a permission on or off for one particular group of people.
• The spammers mostly edit as IP users - so job #1 is definitely to remove page-create and edit facilities from "all visitors" and only turn them on for "all logged-in accounts".
• However, you may find that some spammers do actually create accounts - they use them once and then forget about them so blocking them gets old, fast. So the next step in escalating your security is to turn off the page creation and editing privilage for "all logged-in accounts" too - and just enable it for "confirmed email address" users. (set '$wgEmailConfirmToEdit=true;') to make that work).
• So far I have never seen a spammer who created an account AND confirmed their email address on my personal Wiki. So this seems to be adequate protection. For the utterly paranoid, disable the ability of IP users and even regular users to create accounts! Now, the only way for someone to edit is to have an account - and the only people who have accounts are the people for whom you create them using the WikiSysOp account! This certainly locks out spammers - but it also effectively locks out the good guys too.

SteveBaker (talk) 23:05, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, resolved. Turns out that I have to upgrade my wiki... Blake Gripling (talk) 11:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Google Phrase

1. How can you look for an exact phrase on Google that has either, for example, "favourite" or "favorite" in it? I know you can use the command "x OR x", but I want to know what to do for exact phrases. Typing "that is my favorite OR favourite game" can confuse the search engine.124.180.143.48 (talk) 09:19, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

This is a guess, but you could try "that is my favorite game" OR "that is my favourite game". -- SGBailey (talk) 10:11, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

ORing the phrases definitely works, but I tried this on a hunch and it seems to work too: "that is my (favorite|favourite) game". The two methods don't seem to be equivalent - they give different numbers of results in a different ranking. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 11:52, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Ubuntu - slow DNS lookups

I have slow DNS lookups - e.g. in Firefox, it takes a long time at "Lookup up x.com...". I tried to disable IPv6: I put all sorts of combinations into /etc/modprobe.d/aliases, bad_list and blacklist, but that didn't work. I've tried moving the ipv6 directory out of /lib/2.6.27-7-generic/kernel/net, but that didn't fix the slow DNS lookups. I've disabled avahi-daemon but that didn't do anything either. Any suggestions? --wj32 ^t/c 11:01, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I run dnsmasq. It may take a long time to look something up the first time, but then it is locally cached and won't be looked up the next time you need it. -- kainaw™ 12:29, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I have that already, but is there a real fix for the problem? --wj32 ^t/c 21:42, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Get a faster nameserver. There is nothing you can do on your computer to make a remote nameserver respond faster. -- kainaw™ 02:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think its the nameserver - I think the problem has something to do with IPv6, but I don't know how to fix the problem. I've disabled IPv6, but lookups are still slow. And by slow I mean several seconds. --wj32 ^t/c 02:47, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

What makes you think it isn't the nameserver? What makes you think that IPv6 has anything to do with an IPv4 query to a nameserver? Have you tried a different nameserver? -- kainaw™ 03:30, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Because on Windows and Mac (on the same network) the speed is normal and there is no DNS delay. My previous Ubuntu installation also had no delay. --wj32 ^t/c 04:34, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

There was a bind bug a while back that caused slow DNS resolution if had IPv6 enabled. The true fix is not disabling IPv6. It is updating bind. So, make sure you've applied all updates. As for disabling IPv6, I would do it by adding "alias net-pf-10 off" to /etc/modprobe.conf (you may already have an alias net-pf-10 line, change the value to off). There are other ways. -- kainaw™ 17:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

What can I make?

I recently took apart my nearly obsolete (to me) 2001 macbook. It has a rather nice screen in it, which I would like to use in another project. Is there any way I can connect this screen to something other than the computer for which it was paired? It is a 13" LG/Philips LP121X1 (A2C2) LCD screen and has two connections. One has two wire conduits and I suppose is the power for the fluorescent lamp. The other is flat, about 1x.125", and appears to have 20 wires in its harness. Is there any way to connect this screen to a DVI (or other commonly used) source? I would optimally like to connect this screen to a cable television source. Is this possible? Will it cost significantly more than just buying a 13" tv? Tuckerekcut (talk) 19:49, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, seems this is more involved than I thought, and I really don't have the soldering skills to mess with those tiny pins, maybe I should just scrap this now and save myself the trouble. Consider this question retracted.Tuckerekcut (talk) 20:04, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

You could probably sell it on eBay—replacement screens are pretty expensive to buy new. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:21, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

::A 2001 MacBook? Sell it to ME! (Although, to be fair, there are probably a thousand people out there who will outbid me ten to one). Was it a prototype? MacBooks did not exist until 2006. I have one of the oldest MacBooks and it is going strong. ... kind of. Did you mean an iBook? Please let us know. Kushal (talk) 21:44, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I feel dumb. Kushal (talk) 22:25, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I did mean iBook.Tuckerekcut (talk) 13:53, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I should have realized that 2001 is a LOT before 2006. Kushal (talk) 18:26, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

November 2

JavaScript Support in OS X

Hi. Outside of Safari, can one run JavaScripts that manipulate files inside OS X, without downloading third-party tools? I understand that one can double-click on AppleScripts, but can one do the same with JavaScripts? OS X also natively supports Python, right? Thanks.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 01:40, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you can run Javascript to manipulate files in any case. Javascript doesn't have file system functions. Anyway if I were to imagine some native way to do it, I'd think of having it somehow execute within Automator or something like that. But even then you'd probably be using Safari's engine... --98.217.8.46 (talk) 04:11, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

In Windows, you can use JavaScript to manipulate files and system settings via the Windows Script Host. It can interface with almost anything, like MS Office. You save the code file with the .js extension and double-click on it. JavaScript cannot manipulate the file system via the browser, but once you execute the standalone file, it can. That's why I was asking about it, because I heard about JavaScript OSA, but it sounds like a third-party add-in. But then, I also heard that Dashboard widgets use JavaScript, too, so I wasn't sure how they execute the code.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 04:24, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Dashboard widgets use Javascript, but the execute it through a Webkit interface, I believe (that is, they use Safari to execute it). The widgets that manipulate things beyond the scope of a browser's ability usually have little custom Applescript or execute regular code, I believe. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:14, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I just want to put out there as well that I don't think there's any easy way to use Javascript this way in OS X. Applescript is definitely the better approach. Just my two cents. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 16:12, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

ok. Thanks for the help.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 00:23, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Question about image to sound converter

Why in those image to sound converter, I have to change settings??? Since its a image converter, the lenght, frequency..... why not the sound that is created after is not based only on the image???? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.79.156.175 (talk) 02:36, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the question is. Some people have produced holograms using sound that they can then shine a light on, so you see an object in 3D as it interacts with the sound. I guess the opposite would be possible but only of use to bats and suchlike, I can't think why I'd want to do it, though one might want to direct sound in strange ways like one can with light and a suitably designed hologram. Dmcq (talk) 10:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I presume this is related to software like that on http://www.seeingwithsound.com/ - if so it should be noted that there is no real link between image and sound and one does need to associate the image height with a range of frequencies and the image width with the time in which one imagines a vertical scan line to move across the image. Remember that here the idea is to allow the visually impaired to interpret the sound in terms of visual elements. Shyamal (talk) 12:57, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I am talking about programs like the java program the_voice, and windows program coagula light. They are used to convert the image into sound, and create sound. The thinng that i dont understand is why I have to configure a bunch of things before converting. I just want to convert the picture in a sound that when looked on a spectrogram would be the picture (or something very near that).201.79.156.175 (talk) 15:00, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't really understand the question(s), but a really easy image-to sound converter is Audacity. Go to "import raw data," then locate your target image. flaminglawyer^c 17:25, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

When i said sound to image converter i was talking about programs that convert images to sound and if you look in the spectrogram of this sound you will see that image. And i was also talking about this: In those programs that i tested you had to changes some things before converting (minimun frequency, maximun frequency, the lenght....) Since they are creating sounds from the images, those sounds caractetistcs should be based on the image on things that the user of the program selected before converting. The things when looking in the spectrogram from the created sound, the image was allways very diffenrent from the original image. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.79.156.175 (talk) 20:23, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

(For the still-confused, here are some examples of what the OP is asking about) — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 21:16, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Can a USB drive survive after being in the washer?

I accidentally washed my USB drive in the clothes washing machine. I heard it clicking around in the dryer. What's the likihood that it will still be good? 67.184.14.87 (talk) 12:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind. I did some research and it turns out it should be fine, provided that you let it dry first before plugging it in. 67.184.14.87 (talk) 13:32, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

It might survive...but it's not a certainty. Letting it dry out gently but completely before turning it on/plugging it in will help your chances a lot. SteveBaker (talk) 19:17, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

WinXP limited account and taskscheduler

I created a limited account on Win XP and I cannot any longer see the tasks under taskscheduler that I created on the Admin account. When I tried to create a task with the same name on limited account, the message says the task already exists. Does this mean that those tasks I created on admin account will run on limited account as well, without any extra changes in scheduler settings? Thanks for any advice. 59.91.253.105 (talk) 11:20, 2 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.91.254.115 (talk)

Mail (app) cache

Does Mail (app) in Mac OS X Tiger (Intel MacBook, 10.4.11) cache everything locally for an IMAP account? I have a GMail account which I use from Mail (app). If I have about 3 GB worth of Mail in GMail, is all 3 GB being cached locally? Including all attachments? Where? Any ideas? Kushal (talk) 15:54, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is cached locally. Look in ~/Library/Mail. Attachments are in ~/Library/Mail Downloads/. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:01, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much. That was very fast! I am curious how Apple's folder is 4.12 GB (http://benjaminrogerstexas.googlepages.com/sizeinMailapp110120081207CST.png) while size in GMail is only 2483 MB (http://benjaminrogerstexas.googlepages.com/SizeinGMail110120081206CST.png). Maybe that depends on how they organize their mail? I believe that Apple creates a separate file for every mail message. Or am I running off a tangent here? Kushal (talk)

Yes, it creates a separate file for every message. You can see them all in there if you look in the folder. As for why it takes more than Gmail... no clue. Apple Mail just stores the messages as plaintext; perhaps Google compresses them. One of my mailboxes is 1.06 GB in Apple Mail; when I compress it as a ZIP it is only 697MB—40% less than before, about the same as your difference. It's odd that compression is not available in Apple Mail—it seems like an obvious thing to do at this point in time. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 18:40, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I guess the answer to not compressing is just the reason it creates separate files for each message—faster indexing. People are already complaining that Spotlight is too slow (they obviously haven't used Windows Search for a long time). Things may change with 10.7 once we get Finder rewritten and debugged. I believe Snow Leopard is not bringing many changes to Mail.app Kushal (talk) 12:06, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Missing wireless network?

Hello, we recently restored our Comcast subscription after some difficulty with them in paying our bills. Before these problems, we had cable TV and an Internet connection, the latter for which we had a wireless router. After fixing the problems, we have cable TV back, but we do not seem to have a signal from the wireless router. I am able to have an Internet connection by plugging into the router with an Ethernet cord, but my laptop does not pick up our specific wireless network as it did before. I imagine that the deactivation might require manually restoring this wireless connection, but I'm not sure how to go about doing this. What can I do? 98.223.188.95 (talk) 16:18, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

What make and model of router? Kittybrewster ☎ 16:22, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Linksys WRT54G series. 98.223.188.95 (talk) 16:36, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Type into the URL bar the IP address 192.168.1.1 ... username leave blank ... password admin. Kittybrewster ☎ 18:12, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I was able to go from there... poked around on Google and found what changes I needed to make. Appreciate it! 98.223.188.95 (talk) 18:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Now change the username and password. Kittybrewster ☎ 19:07, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

"This" and "first" memes on online forums?

Lately I keep seeing this goofy meme on some forums, where someone will post just the word "this", or just the word "first" in response to a question. Maybe I'm out of touch, but I just don't get it. Any takers? Squidfryerchef (talk) 19:02, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I've seen it more on blogs. Big blog post at a major blog, and oh boy, you've stumbled upon it before anyone else has commented. Within minutes there will be twenty comments or so, but you are first! Oh boy. What an achievement.

I've seen it on forums I've been on since at least 2001, but it's probably from earlier. It's pretty lame. I think it's generally called "first post" as a phenomena. Like many internet things it's probably hard to pin it down though it's probably been on slashdot for quite awhile. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:03, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

"This" means that you agree with the quoted statement. It's fairly common on the comments of stories on Fark.com. Like many things, there is an entry on Urbandictionary.--droptone (talk) 12:30, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Followup question (I admit, it belongs on the Language Desk) - is internet communication, as a whole, unifying or schisming the English language? Any good academic papers on this subject? Nimur (talk) 17:57, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Probably tons of papers. Once in a while they get picked up by Slashdot but I have no idea which tag you'd use to find them. Squidfryerchef (talk) 23:24, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

So, "this" is for when one really, really has nothing to add to a discussion? Wow. Squidfryerchef (talk) 23:21, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Enjoy the new crap. Same as the old crap. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 01:00, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

From what I've seen, "this" tends to mean the poster agrees with the previous post. --saxsux (talk) 20:12, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Excel and HTML tables

1. How is data stored in excel? I notice that when I copy cells from excel to notepad, the cell divisions show up as tabs and line breaks. Also, when I copy text from notepad to excel, the tabs and line breaks show up as cell divisions.

2. Is there a straightforward way to copy an html table into excel? Merely copying and pasting does not work, and neither does paste special.

Thanks! -VectorField (talk) 19:02, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

See Microsoft Excel#File_formats. In short, for Office 2003 (version 11) and earlier, Excel uses a proprietary binary file format. Beginning with Office 2007 (version 11), Excel uses a new compresses XML format. If you have Excel 2007, you can get a good idea of how Excel stores data by using the Save-As function to save into an XML file format. You can then view the file using your favorite text or XML editor. You will find a lot of overhead at the beginning of the file, with actual cell data near the end.

As for cut & paste from Excel, the results you get depend on the application you paste into. Excel makes several versions of the cut/copied data available. If you paste into another Excel spreadsheet, Excel native data will be pasted. If you paste into a word processor of web page editor, you may get a tabular view that preserves data formatting to varying degrees. If you paste into a text only window, such as Notepad, you will likely get tab delimited text.

Pasting from HTML into Excel an be tricky. If the HTML table is simple, you may get good results. If the HTML table has nested formatting, the results may not be what you want - often containing data split between cells, merged cells, and other formatting strangeties. I often copy and paste first from a web page into a text editor, clean up the data there, and then copy & paste from there into Excel. -- Tcncv (talk) 19:52, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I've done this too, but do you know of a way I can quickly clean out all the tabs that result from pasting a table into Notepad? My strategy consists mostly pressing enter when I see a tab (to put them into a large column which I just paste into Excel). Do you know of an automated way of doing this?--droptone (talk) 16:40, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Highlight the whitespace that represents a tab. Press control-C. Press control-H. Make sure the cursor is in the "Find What" field and press control-V. Place your cursor in the "Replace With" field and type in whatever you want the tab replaced with, such as a comma. Save the file, the start Excel and do File /Open. Select Files of Type = text files. You will then be presented with the Text Import wizard. Which, by the way, will happily accept a file with tabs as the delimiters between columns, so all that copying, pasting, and replacing shouldn't be necessary. --LarryMac | Talk 17:04, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

TrueCrypt and Autoplay

(Windows XP Pro)

I've noticed that every time I uninstall TrueCrypt, it screws up Windows' AutoRun/AutoPlay feature so bad, nothing can turn it on - only System Restore helps. (Autoplay Repair doesn't ("Shell: deaf" or something like), IniFileMapping isn't set for autorun.inf).

Any ideas why it does this and how it can be fixed, other than System Restoring everything?

--grawity 19:49, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Check the registry key cited in wikipedia's article on Autoplay (that is, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CDRom). Is it set to 0? If so, try setting it to 1 and see what happens. Belisarius (talk) 21:30, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Check the Group Policy for AutoRun - Open Run... and type mmc. Choose File > Add/Remove Snap-in... and click Add.... Choose the Group Policy Object Editor and click Add. Click OK, Close, then OK. Expand Local Computer Policy, Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, then click System. There should be an item called Turn off Autoplay. Set that to Disabled. Do the same thing for Local Computer Policy > User Configuration > Administrative Templates > System. --wj32 ^t/c 06:22, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

First, would the Cdrom entry affect USB drives? (I can't test, because I've already SysRestored the system.) Second, TrueCrypt's *un*installer shouldn't mess with policies, and if it did, I'm sure Microsoft's AutoplayRepair would notice that. (Its logs say it didn't.) --grawity 12:35, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure most programs use Policies to disable Autoplay (it's in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Policies\Explorer\). But have you tried what I said? --wj32 ^t/c 08:31, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

World of Warcraft: Treasure yield

For the World of Warcraft boss monster Gehennas, three different sites give a wide range of figures for the monetary value of his average treasure drop. Allakhazam says he has a "value" of 16g 53s 50c, Wowhead indicates his "average money dropped" as 73g 60s 85c, and Thottbot gives an "average coin" of 5g 39s 12c and a "vendor/auction value" of 30g 19s 51c (although the "total" that apparently combines average coin and "vendor-only value" is reasonably close to Allakhazam's figure at 16g 93s 39c).

Why the discrepancy between 16g, 30g and 73g? Is such wide variation in measurements common? Does it interfere with measurements of the game's GDP etc? Which figure is the most useful for the player that wants to maximize income? NeonMerlin 20:57, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't have specific knowledge of WoW at the higher levels, but I do know that gaming companies keep tight control over the economies of their MMORPGs by controlling a number of dials, such as how much money monsters drop and how much money dissappears through "sinks" (in WoW, I believe one of the biggest sinks is the cost to repair equipment). If there is too much money in the system (i.e. inflation is high), they turn up the sinks, if there is too little, maybe they up money-drops from the biggest monsters. In this way, they can keep a pretty efficient control over the in-game markets (I heard some economist say once that MMORPGs are truly the only functioning communist societies in history).

I have no idea if that is what is going on, but it could be. It could also be that since these sites get their information second-hand, they simply haven't gotten enough data to give a good estimate and weed out the anomalies, and thus the information varies. Belisarius (talk) 23:32, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

one value is net, one is distributed among participants, one weights value of inventory by frequency and valuations 32.164.71.8 (talk) 20:44, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Copy home folder on Ubuntu?

Resolved

I tried to copy my home folder, on Ubuntu, but I always get errors, I already tried to do it in a root nautilus, root terminal, doing "chomd 777" to that folder, and nothing! Any ideas? SF007 (talk) 21:11, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

What errors? -- kainaw™ 21:13, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

"Error making symbolic link: operation not permitted" SF007 (talk) 21:19, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like you are copying a symbolic link from your home directory onto a computer that doesn't have the file (or you don't have permission to see the file) that the symbolic link is pointing to. Remove the symbolic link from the files you are copying. -- kainaw™ 02:53, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I tried copying from the running system, and also from a Live CD, and nothing! Is there an easy way to do that thing you mention, in a easy and foolproof way? Thanks SF007 (talk) 14:18, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Where are you copying to? It appears that where you are copying to is telling you that the symbolic link is not allowed. -- kainaw™ 20:42, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

It is solved! I just went to my home folder, pressed "ctrl" + "H" (to show all files), and then just copied all the stuff EXCEPT the "examples" folder. Thanks! SF007 (talk) 01:33, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

The symbolic links were likely in the examples folder is where the symbolic links were. Removing that folder removed the problems of trying to copy symbolic links. -- kainaw™ 14:17, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

November 3

Checking for user fonts

I want to construct a web-page that displays text if the user has a specific font installed, and an image of that text if they do not. This way I can make sure it always displays the way I want it to (yes, this is important). Is this possible? If so, how so? I heard that javascript might do the trick. Deshi no Shi (talk) 01:31, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Some googling turned up this nice little article explaining how to do it, and this page shows that it actually works quite well. Good luck! Belisarius (talk) 01:54, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Since that uses JavaScript, it is dependent on the end-user having JavaScript enabled. Since it is so easy to disable (and disabling JavaScript is becoming more and more popular), making your website require JavaScript to provide basic functionality will turn away users instead of attract them. You may as well do away with the trouble of looking for fonts and just page your page a big JPG image so you can control exactly how it appears. -- kainaw™ 02:52, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure disabling javascript is really all that popular. It's certainly a bit silly — javascript is a major component of Web 2.0 and people who disable it do so at their own peril. Anyway, if you use a solution where text is written in a default font and then the javascript checks if it is in the right font and if not turns it into an image... non-javascript people will just see it in the default font. Which might not be pretty but it's not worth bending over backwards for people who go to extremes of disabling all javascript, in my opinion. If you disable basic functionality you are probably used to seeing things not as designers intended. A designer's obligation in my mind is that things fail in a still-usable fashion. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 03:11, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

That was my point ... designers should be obligated to ensure that failure to meet all of their design still renders something useful. Consider a blind person trying to use the site using a text-only reader (no graphics, no javascript, no special fonts...). Most designers feel that the public is obligated to install Windows with the latest version of IE and the latest version of flash just to view their special creation. As for disabling JavaScript... disabling it doesn't mean you disable ALL scripts. I commonly go to pages where I have the page's scripts enabled and Google Analycts junk disabled. What is being disabled is annoyances, not functionality. A page that demands that I run a script just to see content in a specific font is an annoyance. -- kainaw™ 03:23, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I am upfront about using Google Analytics on my website and actually inform my visitors that they have an option to disable it, if they choose to. (I publicize Mozilla Firefox in the process, but that should not be immoral.) Being on a mac most of the time, I understand the annoyance when a website does not work on Mozilla Firefox or even worse, shows a pop-up saying "Please upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer." Kushal (talk) 12:01, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

For a long while, I used a 10-year old PC that was simply incapable of running the latest and greatest Internet Explorer and Flash versions. A large number of pages (many from major corporations) either displayed various amounts of garbage or refused to work at all. My pet annoyance was to have web mail freeze for 15 minutes or more while trying to display a Flash advertisment. I found that uninstalling the Flash plugin and disabling Javascript gave a much more usable internet, especially when visiting those sites that actually bothered to implement the <alt> or <noscript> html tags. Astronaut (talk) 12:49, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Again—all I think the developer needs to do is make sure things fail in a usable fashion. On all the sites I produce, if you show up without the ability to see flashy things, you won't see flashy things. But you can still use the site. (And what's up with the Analytics hate? It's far more anonymized information than most server logs—you can't, for example, follow an individual users' habits, which is quite trivial to do with server logs.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:56, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Speaker blip blip blip buzz blip blip buzz noize

You're probably heard this noise even if you don't realize it, because it's rather hard to describe, but I often hear it from electronic speakers at random times regardless of whether they're playing something or not, they tend to make this blip blip blip buzz noise and I haven't been able to uncover any information on what causes it on the internet. It appears to be the same pattern of sound from speaker to speaker and I am really curious to find out what the cause of it is. For the any of you who know of this specific sound that I am talking about, do you know what causes this strange sound? Yakeyglee (talk) 03:35, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

That may be interference coming from a cell phone signal, be it an incoming call or a text message. My professor likes to claim that it is an advanced Russian detection system. Go ahead and try standing next to some speaker wires and send/receive text messages and phone calls. --omnipotence407 (talk) 03:47, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Depending on shielding for the speakers and the signal cables, a lot of weird noises can be picked up from all the electromagnetic radio wave activity in the air. I had to toss out a set of speakers that my wife had because they were especially susceptible to the shrimp boat radios. I got tired of listening to the shrimp boaters jabber back and forth all day and all night. -- kainaw™ 12:46, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

My speaker chord was too close to my land line telephone. When I moved the chord a few centimetres away from the receiver, the speaker stopped making those odd noises. Sandman30s (talk) 14:37, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing you have DSL - in that case, you probably need to buy a $5 filter to put between the wall socket and the phone. If you do have DSL and you don't already have the filter - then you should definitely do this in order to avoid killing your network error rate every time someone picks up the phone. SteveBaker (talk) 21:02, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Cannot associate files

OK, so I have Winamp on my PC, and whenever I try to associate MP3s to it, it does nothing, although I can do so in my other account in XP. Any thoughts on this? Blake Gripling (talk) 10:32, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Could you tell us what mp3 files are associated with at the moment? Kushal (talk) 11:50, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

If Winamp is not doing it directly (Winamp->Options->Preferences->Setup->File types->select all (or just mp3) then close) then you can use these steps: My Computer->Tools->Folder options->File types->mp3->Change->Select Winamp. To follow up Kushal one's question, if they are constantly associated with another media player then that player may be constantly changing the associations do you'd need to fiddle with its options to make it stop.--droptone (talk) 12:57, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

@Kushal: Nothing, although they bear the WMP icon. Whenever I double-click on them, nothing happens. Blake Gripling (talk) 00:44, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, Blake. If you are sure nothing happens, please move on to the steps that Droptone suggested. HTH, Kushal (talk) 18:00, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

TI-84 Plus Silver Edition Screen Problem

There is a column of pixels on the screen that refuse to turn on, even after completely resetting the calculator. What is going on? PS It's not under warranty 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 14:15, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

That's a classic symptom of a broken display. There is nothing you can do - except send it back for repair. It sucks that it's not under warranty - and the cost of repair could easily exceed the cost of a new machine (esp. if you remember to include postage). (The newer ones also tend to have more memory...so that might help to swing your decision towards "replace" rather than "repair"). SteveBaker (talk) 14:21, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Grabbing that "CNNBC" video

-- and complete with the trimmings.

As you may know, moveon.org has produced a very flash couple of minutes of Flash, which you get at the special-purpose "cnnbcvideo.com".

(If you don't know, well, you go there and you write somebody's first and second names and email address. The website then sends a spammy looking message to that address, and if the recipient's spam filter is any good, the message is trashed. One way to get it is to use a web-based account -- I used yahoo.co.jp -- and flush out its junk folder, have cnnbcvideo.com send the message, and then fish this message out of the junk folder. The message, if you manage to get it, contains a link to a personalized page of cnnbcvideo.com that offers a Flash video that, eerily, is just for you. You can watch it perhaps three times, but thereafter it's no longer available, and with no explanation.)

So, I got the message, I clicked on the link, I gazed dumbstruck at the video, I fished the 5.8MB file out of the Firefox cache and gave it a name ending SWF. VLC plays it just fine. However, what I see is the generic version, with the variables undefined.

Presumably VLC gets the main file and some (flv?) datafile and constructs "your" video in your own 'puter. Extraordinary. Well, however it works when you're connected to cnnbcvideo.com, presumably it would also work when you have the right files with the right names in the right relative positions in your own directory structure. But what are the values for all these variables? Or -- the "teach a man to fish" question -- how, using Firefox, Konqueror, Safari, Opera or even (on a borrowed machine) Explorer would I find out what they are?

I did look in Google for this one, but only found this Mozillazine post, the same question as my own, posed by "Guest" (not me); this hasn't yet been answered. But someone here can do better, I'm sure. -- Hoary (talk) 14:34, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Why would you even want to do this? It sounds like some advertising spam to me that no one would actually want in their inbox. Like you said yourself: "...sends a spammy looking message..." and "...I gazed dumbstruck at the video...", so it has to be crap. However, if you must, take a look at the "page source" and pay particular attention to the link to launch the video. You should be able to fish out the variables used to provide you with your personalised spam. Astronaut (talk) 16:35, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I seen that video yesterday and it is cool. The NY Times blog notes that it is "essentially multiple layers of Flash animation". If you find out how to, leave a note here please? F (talk) 03:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the link, O tersely named editor. I'm glad to infer that the video interested you. Yes, if I manage to grab it intact I'll say how I managed to do so. -- Hoary (talk) 05:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, Astronaut, unless the viewer is an unusually solemn supporter of McCain (or Barr, Nader, etc), this is a fascinating video and a good example of how, miracle of miracles, what at first looks spammy both to a human and to SpamAssassin isn't always spammy. (Come to think of it, committed Republicans ought to be particularly interested by the video, wanting to reverse-engineer it and apply its methods the next time around.) But thank you for the technical tips and encouragement. -- Hoary (talk) 05:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

It's a Flash video. It most certainly runs a regular video and then superimposes the name in the right place at the right times. What's clever about it is just that it hasn't been done on that big a scale before, and that it was done quite effectively so that the text really did look integrated with the video feed. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 12:53, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

font size=1

what would replace the deprecated tag <font size=1>?--Givensuch2 (talk) 18:31, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

You would want to use inline CSS with a div tag. For example:

<div style="font-size: 14pt">Hello</div> Or, for pixels: <div style="font-size: 1px">Hi</div> I hope I answered your question! _David^WS _(contribs) 21:17, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Or maybe a span tag instead, if you want it to be inline, not block. --Kjoonlee 23:00, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Android Eclipse setup

Hi, I am a neighborhood idiot. I can't get android setup in eclipse. Even following a guide directly from google and how to install their SDK. I wanted to play around with android apps so I wanted to know what I had to do to setup android. The problem I keep having is that it doesn't look right, I'll follow their guide and go to start typing in code and it never registers as it should. 66.216.163.92 (talk) 23:31, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I found it was very sensitive to the precise versions of Eclipse, JDK, etc, etc. Make sure you have the exact versions that Google describe. I also had a heck of time getting it to work because some versions of eclipse are broken for 64-bit machines and eat all of RAM before you've even gotten started. However, on 32 bit hardware and with the versions of everything that they suggest - it "just worked" for me. (It's kinda cool - you can run their emulation of an Android phone - you can even do stuff like surfing the web using their browser on the simulation of the phone.) SteveBaker (talk) 14:14, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Div and span attributes

Please go over some basic div and span attributes. Put a {{tb}} on my talk page when awnsered.--Ipatrol (talk) 23:31, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

HTML or CSS attributes? -- kainaw™ 00:59, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

DIV and SPAN at w3schools. If you still have questions then ask away! Otherwise look things up for yourself. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:48, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

November 4

Adobe Media Player

How come after viewing my saved favorites only once they automatically disappear, even though I download them in order to watch them? It even tells me that I'm not online when I try to re-download them, even though I clearly am. Is that normal of the program? --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 04:26, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Status of Apache log for downlaod of a file

When user downloads a file from web server, apache access_logs show 200 OK followed by size of the file downloaded. Does this 200 OK mean that the complete file was downloaded by the user successfully? I suspect that Apache sends file and closes connection and puts log entry. (Client browser will receive FD_CLOSE socket event, but client should continue reading remaining data on the socket). But at users end, there may be network error just before receiving the last few bytes, and user may not receive complete file. Or does Apache waits for client to close the socket connection and only then it puts the log entry? manya (talk) 06:59, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I just started to download a large file and cut off the transmission halfway through. At that point Apache logged with 200/OK, and showed the file size I actually downloaded. 200/OK just means which HTTP error code got sent to the client, which happens before file transfer even starts. Note also that Apache won't wait until the socket is closed since modern browsers will do more than one request on a connection (constant opening and closing of connections was one of the major slowdowns of standard HTTP 1.0). --Sean 14:54, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

REPOST: Stopping Excel from Minimizing sheets

Didn't get an answer, and it is driving me crazy. DOR (HK) (talk) 07:29, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

---

I’ve Googled and run around the tech blogs, but no one seems to come close to a sensible answer to this one. When I copy-and-paste a column of numbers from a website spreadsheet (e.g., http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CPIAUCNS/downloaddata?cid=9), and paste it into my own Excel spreadsheet, two things happen. First, I am instantly jerked back to the source web page (not such a big deal). Second, and this drives me crazy, the Excel page (e.g., “Sheet 1”) pops out of maximized size (the sheet, not the program, shrinks). This makes the scroll bars disappear and causes a host of other problems.

Stats: XP Professional SP2; Office 2003

Is there a simple way to tell Excel to knock it off? DOR (HK) (talk) 05:39, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

(Yes, I used "Special Paste," but it didn't help.)

---

I copied and pasted that data into excel using all three file formats and it worked just fine. My stats are the same as yours. Which file format are you using? Zain Ebrahim (talk) 10:17, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

0x80004005 error when I try to register vbscript.dll

I'm getting this one whenever I try to register the library, since I can't use VBScript; however, when I try to log on another account, I can register the said DLL. I need some help on this! Blake Gripling (talk) 07:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Microsoft big through illegal copies

Did Microsoft become big thanks to illegal copies? And did they plan that? (Yes, pov, I know.) The first question is almost rhetorical. msWindows became the OS standard because so many illegal copies were going around. (Although there are probably many other factors too.) But this makes me wonder if Microsoft planned this. Is it true that msWindows was (and is?) very easy to hack? If I'm not mistaken, one could retry the installation code an infinite number of times. So it's just a matter of letting a computer try all the possibilities and it'll give you the code within a week or so (yes?). Then spread that copy along with the code and the world uses msWindows. This is not just easy. This is a no-brainer. Below a hacker almost because there is no challenge. But is it true? Amrad (talk) 09:09, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Microsoft would certainly have a smaller market share if it wasn't for "illegal" copies, but their profits would be higher. Maybe. --wj32 ^t/c 09:56, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I doubt it. Bill Gates was strongly opposed to piracy from the beginning (the 1970s) and became a leading critic of it. Piracy doesn't make business sense because you have to make up the lost sales revenue by either raising prices, cutting prices (to increase sales), or by cutting costs. You can't really stop piracy, anyway. Microsoft's copy protection isn't as evil as Adobe's, but it is still stricter than many. You have to enter in a serial number and then activate the software. The usage share of Windows would drop slightly if it were impossible to pirate it, but it would still dominate the industry due to the proprietary nature of Macs. Remember that Windows became popular before the rise of mass Internet piracy.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 10:33, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that's how they got big - and I'm 100% sure piracy had nothing to do with it. You have to look at the history. They were a fairly small company with essentially one product (their BASIC interpreter) that they'd ported to a number of personal computers (of the kind that mostly used cassette tape for storage). As 5.25" floppy disk drives started to become dirt cheap, CP/M (from Digital Research) became the 500lb gorilla - nearly everyone used it on 8 bit floppy-based hardware. When 16 bit hardware started to appear, CP/M-86 was a minimal port of CP/M and was (frankly) a bit pathetic - and when IBM decided to make their PC, they wanted to talk to Digital Research about getting it on their new hardware - but somehow Digital Research didn't pay them enough attention and Microsoft stepped in. It also helped that IBM wanted a BASIC interpreter in ROM as an alternative to the floppy-based operating system - and it's a little-remembered fact that the original IBM PC could be booted into a ROM-based BASIC interpreter just like an Apple ][ or a TRS-80 - since Microsoft were already the number one shipper of ROM-based BASIC interpreters, that must have helped IBM's decision.

The first version of DOS (PC-DOS - for the IBM PC only) wasn't much more than a clone of CP/M-86 - and it was just as pathetic - but Microsoft at least took the time to work with IBM where Digital Research just said "here is our CP/M-86 product - use it". I suspect that was because Microsoft had the experience of dealing with computer-makers and DR did not. Remember that every home computer had needed a slightly different version of BASIC - where Digital Research had written their "BIOS" layer that allowed the computer vendors to write their own BIOS and then take an unmodified copy of CP/M and it would just work without porting. That meant that Digital Research didn't need to work with the hardware vendors - where Microsoft did. That one fact (which was pretty much luck on the part of Bill Gates) explains 100% of the remaining history. The BIOS in your modern PC shares a lot of ancient history with the CP/M BIOS.

MS-DOS was just PC-DOS with a different label on it - and it was a way for Microsoft to sell clones of PC-DOS to clone PC makers. The success of PS-DOS was simply due to the success of the IBM PC. Businesses had been sticking to big mainframes and minicomputers - even though the desktop computer revolution was in full swing because they didn't know who to talk to or what to do. When IBM stepped into the market with their PC, businesses loved it to death...that pushed PC-DOS to fame. When IBM didn't bother to stamp on clone-makers - and their add-on board hardware made it possible for third parties to make cards to plug into the IBM PC (a thing that was unheard of at the time!) - this fed the PC-clone fire. As PC's took off, MS-DOS took off too - and before you could blink, the PC and MS-DOS were the only game in town. CP/M-86 was forgotten and cassette-tape machines went the way of the dodo (except perhaps in the UK where Sinclair was hitting the ultra-low-end market) - and the only competition for the PC were the AtariST and the Amiga - whom businesses simply ignored (stupidly, IMHO). By the time Apple woke up and made the Mac, Microsoft had gotten big enough and evil enough that they could dominate the market by simply leveraging their near-monopoly. When their competitors tried to sell applications that competed with Microsofts' own applications - MS simply changed the OS so that the competitor's software either wouldn't run or would run so badly that it would be unusable. The rest is just a continuation of that trend.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:02, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

The reference desk is usually for factual information... not for biased essays, incorrect assertions ("pretty much luck on the part of Bill Gates"), incorrect information ("MS-DOS was just PC-DOS with a different label on it") and blatant lies ("MS simply changed the OS so that the competitor's software either wouldn't run or would run so badly that it would be unusable"). Way to be total dick though, if there was barnstar for people who should be castrated, I'd give it to you. - Jimmi Hugh (talk) 21:25, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

You may already know of it, but for a good overview of the early days and evolution of the microcomputer, including the rise of Microsoft, I highly recommend the 1996 documentary Triumph of the Nerds. Check the video section of your local library. If they don't have it, ask a librarian - they might be able to get it. -- Tcncv (talk) 00:44, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

download

I can't find any downloads for the game Fuji Golf. Could you please direct me to one? 121.219.2.201 (talk) 10:18, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

That's not free software - I think it would be illegal to do that. SteveBaker (talk) 14:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

There are always torrents. But I really don't think that's a good idea--Dlo2012 (talk) 17:56, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

AOL

Why the **** has AOL Hometown been shut down?! There are some pages on there that I really need to visit! 121.219.2.201 (talk) 11:21, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

AOL isn't required to host Hometown if they don't want to. Check the Wayback Machine and see if the pages you want are cached. Also, keep in mind that the Internet is not static. There is no guarantee that anything you find today will be there tomorrow. -- kainaw™ 18:04, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

a gentle start to versioning....

For the past few years, the only programming I did was quick systems administration tasks (and a few other things) in Perl from the Windows command line. Everything was a one-liner. My only form of versioning was the up and down arrows (ie the command history). I would run it, if it worked, I added the next part. If it didn't work anymore I just pressed up and tried to get it working, repeating this until until it worked (this was great: I could just guess at what "might" be the syntax and if I was wrong I'd have it right soon enough) but if I really messed up with the change I tried to introduce and couldn't get it working no-how, I would just press up twice to get to the version before that. Worked great.

Well, recently I decided to start using Python, and it isn't as conducive to the one-liner.

So I started doing this. Instead of up and down arrows, every single change I made I copied the py file, like this: 1something.py 2something.py etc. If I really broke for example 23something.py then I would delete it and go back to 22something.py

It works okay but it's more work after my next change is okay to copy a file and iterate the number it starts with, close the project, and open the copied version, than to just press the up arrow and continue editing!

So I'd like a gentle introduction to a real versioning system. I want something that I can use my old, test-heavy approach, where every single change I immediately tested (and thereby committed as a version in the command history), and this only took a press of the up key and the return key.

Can anyone give me an easy introductory tip (windows or an online service) that would be just as simple. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.209.97 (talk) 13:21, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

If I were you - I'd install 'Subversion' (often abbreviated to the name of the command-line version: 'svn'). Its a full-blown, industrial-strength version control system with all the bells and whistles - but it has a fairly low entry-point on the learning curve and it's OpenSourced and fully portable across operating systems. Once you've created your repository, you can boil down the (huge) command set to just four commands: add, remove, update and commit. Use 'add' and 'remove' to add and remove files from the directory you're working in - use 'commit' to put your changes into the repository - and 'update' to get an updated set of files from the repository. This will get you started - then you can learn about reversion, making branches, tagging versions in various ways, resolving changes made by two or more people at the same time, etc, etc. You can use Subversion remotely over the net - but you can also keep your repository on your local machine where you can easily wipe it out and start over if you make a mistake. There are many great SVN tutorials on the net. If you have a strong aversion to command-line tools, you can use one of the many graphical front-ends to subversion such as 'SmartSVN' - I believe some of those are OpenSourced, but I don't use any of them because I'm a command-line junkie. I've worked on million-line-of-code projects that used subversion - and I keep all that I do at home using it too (even my firefox preferences file and letters to the bank are version controlled and kept in my repository!) SteveBaker (talk) 13:39, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

reset Keyboard

i dropped my laptop, and now some letters come out different from how they should, eg, a b c d e f g h 5 1 2 3 0 n 6 - q r s t 4 v w x y z. please help me, how can this be fixed, at the moment i have to copy and paste 50% of my letters. took me 25 mins to write this —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.18.34.11 (talk) 20:22, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

uh, your num lock is on? If you look VERY carefully at the letters that come out as 5, 1, 2, 3, instead of i, j, k, l you should see (maybe in a very different color that's for example blue on black keys, or a weird part of the key [upper-left, etc]) the numbers will be painted on them. They might be hard to spot. Just press num lock again (it should be in the top row somewhere) and you'll be all set. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.214.224 (talk) 20:42, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much, you are a real life saver! If i can ever do anything for you just say the word! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.18.34.11 (talk) 20:59, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Squid cache

Can someone help me understand the sorts of things squid cache does by perhaps giving me examples of what it is used for on Wikipedia --RMFan1 (talk) 23:07, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Squid is used by wikipeda as a cache. When you ask for a Wikipedia page, you don't ask the php scrips and database directly, you ask the squid cache. The first time you do this is passes the request on to the php and database to really generate the page. Squid remembers the contents of that page, so the next person that requests it can just get the copy which squid has remembered, without needing to hit the php and database again. Using the cache reduces the load that wikipedia's main servers have to cope with. --h2g2bob (talk) 00:08, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Google Reader shared items

I find that Google Reader is consistently omitting my friends' shared items if they are from blogs I already subscribe to. To see these items, I have to switch to "all items", i.e. they are automatically being marked as read if I already subscribe to that blog. Is anyone else having this problem? How can I make it show all of my friends' shared items? --Anakata (talk) 00:13, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Strange as it may sound, my contacts and I probably do not have any common shared subscriptions on Google Reader. Kushal (talk) 00:24, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

windows 7 "leaked" - file type?

I just downloaded the "leaked" build of Windows 7. It is in the form of a .TPB.torrent file. How would I convert it out of .torrent? Then the .TPB extension... I have no idea what that is. flaminglawyer^c 01:28, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

This appears to be a copyright violation and we don't links, nor do we provide related information. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 01:33, 5 November 2008 (UTC)